CHAPTER XV.

THE BASUTOS.

Of the Basutos I have said something in my attempt to tell the story of the Orange Free State; but the tribe still occupy so large a space in South Africa and has made itself so conspicuous in South African affairs as to require some further short mention for the elucidation of South African history. They are a people who have been moved, up and down, about South Africa and have thus travelled much, who have come to be located on the land they now hold partly as refugees and partly as conquerors, who thirty years ago had a great Chief called Moshesh of whom some have asserted that he was a Christian, and others that he was a determined Savage, who are still to be found in various parts of South Africa, and who perhaps possess in their head-quarters of Basuto Land the very best agricultural soil on the continent. There are at present supposed to be about 127,000 of them settled on this land, among whom there would be according to the general computation about 21,000 fighting warriors. The fighting men are estimated to be a sixth of the whole tribe,—so that every adult male not incapacitated by age or misfortune is counted as a fighting man. To imagine, however, that if the Basutos were to go to war they could bring